


The Haunting of Barrack 8B

by Llama1412



Series: Love Shack [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26725819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama1412/pseuds/Llama1412
Summary: There was a ghost in Ellander’s Temerian army base. More specifically, in Barrack 8B, also known as the Blue Stripes’ temporary accommodations.
Relationships: Iorveth/Vernon Roche
Series: Love Shack [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860328
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	The Haunting of Barrack 8B

**Author's Note:**

> Set ambiguously pre-W2  
> Ellander = nearest city to Iorveth’s forest (aside from Flotsam). The Blue Stripes are stationed here when they aren’t in the field

There was a ghost in Ellander’s Temerian army base. More specifically, in Barrack 8B, also known as the Blue Stripes’ temporary accommodations. That was the rumor Commander Vernon Roche was stuck dealing with right now.

Which was complicated, because it was in fact true that their barracks were haunted, but it wasn’t by any ghost.

He was mostly sure of that.

She moved like a ghost, though, getting in and out of places that shouldn’t be possible. He had caught sight of her exactly once – Roche had woken up in the wee hours of the morning with the feeling of someone’s eyes on him. When he’d flicked his eyes open with just the slightest movement, he made eye contact with a small girl with pointed ears who appeared to be casually hanging from the rafters. When he blinked to check if he was actually awake, she had been gone.

Roche hadn’t been sure it wasn’t a dream until something strange started to happen. Well, strang _er._

Little things around the base started getting taken care of without Roche being able to account for the man hours of it. Things that people had lost turned up in their bags and no one could say how they got there. Items that had been too far away to reach when they last looked were suddenly in their hands the moment they went to grab it. It was both spooky and strangely helpful.

By now, it was more than just the Blue Stripes that believed in the ghost. The friendly ghost of Barrack 8B, they said. The problem was, Roche didn’t believe in friendly ghosts. 

He thought he was proven right when things started going missing. Only they weren’t important things. First people’s pens would disappear right when they needed them, but they would find them later, sitting neatly in their bag as though they had never been gone. Then it moved onto food.

The first time Shorty claimed that his chicken sandwich had been stolen, Roche had dismissed it. According to Shorty, he had just set the sandwich down for a moment, and when he turned back, it was gone.

The third time, Roche started to wonder if one of the boys wasn’t messing with Shorty. He gave his squad the standard lecture – “you are _professionals._ Anyone seen playing pranks will be on latrine duty for a month” – and hoped that would be the end of it.

Then it happened to him. 

The coffee available in the Ellander Army Base was awful – too watery, too burnt, too stale – but that didn’t stop Roche from having multiple cups scattered around his office, half-full of cold, weak coffee at any given time. He often forgot about them after a while, and admittedly, more than one had probably started to grow something unpleasant from being left about. Which would be less of a problem if he didn’t have a habit of grabbing whichever mug was closest as he paced around working on reports. He kept making notes to himself to clean up his office, or at least to check the mugs before he drank from them, but it never quite happened.

So when he walked into his office one morning to find it completely clean, not a single mug in sight, he knew something was up. There was a _slight_ possibility that Ves had gotten sick of his mess and taken care of it, but she was a lot more likely to bully him into cleaning while she stood over him with a knife than to do it for him. But why in the hell would a “ghost” clean his dirty coffee mugs?

Then again, why would a “ghost” steal Shorty’s sandwich or Silas’s homemade fudge? 

Roche searched his whole office floor to ceiling – which wasn’t hard, because it was about the size of a closet and didn’t have a single window. It’s only merit was the small bookcase he’d managed to squeeze in behind the door – and found absolutely no sign of an intruder...or much of anything else. Had the ghost cleaned his entire office?

He shook his head in confusion and reached for the new mug of coffee that he’d brought in with him. Only it wasn’t there. He turned to look and where his mug once sat, there was only a thin ring of condensation on his desk.

“What the fuck?” He muttered to himself, glancing around the rest of the office to see if he’d just forgotten where he’d put it. But no, there wasn’t a single mug anywhere in the room.

And then he heard it, the strangled coughing and gagging sounds from somewhere in the ceiling. “Bleh,” he heard a muffled exclamation of disgust and then something splashed on the ground outside his office door – which wasn’t actually _outside,_ but perhaps the ghost only cared about cleanliness when it was most confusing.

Roche whipped his door open, only to see a confused and sodden Silas standing with his fist raised to knock and his eyes desperately searching for whatever had gotten him wet. After a long moment of that, Roche cleared his throat and Silas jumped. His youngest soldier seemed to be strangely on edge and Roche’s brow knit as he realized that Silas’s uniform was sloppily put on, with missed and uneven buttons. Given that the young man was _extremely_ dedicated to following procedure to the letter, this was more than a bit strange.

“Silas?” 

“Ah, sorry sir!” Silas gulped, jumping to attention and nearly tripping over the undone laces on his boots. “I – I think the ghost is haunting me, sir.”

Roche blinked and then opened his door wider, beckoning Silas inside. Not that there was anywhere for him to sit or, indeed, much room at all with two people plus furniture in his office, but Roche’s mother had raised him to be polite.

Sort of.

Mostly she’d raised him to swear like a sailor when bill collectors came.

He cleared his throat again and leaned against the wall, noticing that his coffee mug was suddenly back where it had been. _How??_

“I take it you believe in the ghost then,” Roche said, as if he wasn’t also fast becoming a believer himself.

Silas shuddered. “Yes sir. It’s – I think it hates me or something.” Roche grit his teeth to keep his doubtful expression off his face, and nodded for Silas to continue. The boy licked his lips, “it’s _following_ me, sir. I mean, I can _hear_ it following me! I know that it is! But whenever I try to find it, there’s nothing there! It’s, I think it’s tormenting me, sir, and I don’t know why!”

Staring into Silas’ distraught face, Roche abruptly wished he knew how to exorcise a ghost. Even though it probably wasn’t _actually_ a ghost. A ghost wouldn’t have an opinion on shitty coffee, would it?

“We’ll contact the Temple of Melitele,” Roche decided, “have them send a priestess to exorcise the base.” If nothing else, it would give the boy peace of mind. Poor Silas looked on the edge of a nervous breakdown. “Why don’t you go put yourself to rights and then you can head to the Temple.”

Silas nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” He saluted Roche and then turned sharply on his heel and marched off, perfectly in formation if he’d had the rest of the squad with him.

Roche rubbed his face and sighed, dearly wishing for caffeine. He looked at the innocent little mug sitting on his desk and decided that if there wasn’t a ghost somewhere in the ceiling, then no one would know he’d tried talking to it anyway.

“Give the kid a break, will you? You’re going to give him a complex.”

There was no response and Roche immediately felt foolish. Had he been expecting a response? What did he think a normal ghost response would look like?

He shook his head with a quiet groan. If he was lucky, the exorcism would be the end of this. For now, he needed to get out of his tiny office – and maybe he could grab more coffee on the way. Even shitty caffeine was caffeine, after all.


End file.
